Baby Steps by Elisabeth Rohm

hair. I grew up as Serena Southerlyn. We grew up together. When you play a character over the course of years, you can become indistinguishable. The show andSerena became part of me. Law & Order changed me, but I did my fair share of changing Law & Order, too.
    When I came on the show, I was appalled at the Amish-looking, stiff gray suits we were supposed to wear. All the women were dressed down to look sexless and androgynous, their natural beauty stifled, and I wasn’t interested in that at all. They would show me these suits I had to wear, and I would say, “No way, I am not wearing that.” I would wear red lipstick, and they would tell me that a lawyer wouldn’t wear red lipstick. The weekend I got my bangs cut, you would have thought I’d chopped off my own head. The entire production team was in an uproar. Bangs? A lawyer wouldn’t wear bangs! Cute blond bangs? Call the Marines! She cut her bangs! Were they worried the show would be cancelled because Serena Southerlyn had bangs? I was pretty sure the show would be just fine.
    I’ve always believed that a smart woman can still be sexy. Sarah Lawrence was filled with smart sexy women, and my stepmother embodied this principle. I grew up assuming that you could wear stiletto heels and a fitted Gucci suit and still be brilliant—in fact, you might even be more effective and powerful. I didn’t understand why we had to be dressed down or made dowdy to be believable as lawyers.
    By the end of my time there, the producers had gradually conceded my point. I gave a little; they gave a little. I felt like I brought some light to those dank dressing rooms. I insisted on being happy and the golden cage Dick had warned me about actually felt safe. I’ve never been afraid to live the off-kilter life of an actor, but of all the jobs I could have gotten in the context of the bohemian career I’d chosen, this had to be the least bohemian of them all. I began to feel balanced, even as part of me wanted to throw myself off balance again.
    But as much as I gained, I also lost. Being in Law & Order left little time for anything or anyone else. None of my relationships lasted. They all imploded because the show was my priority, because I wasn’tready, because no matter what I thought I wanted from love at the moment, nobody was perfect enough or supportive enough or romantic enough or in the right place at the right time. In other words, my love life was a mess. Work consumed me and I became so attached to the people on the show that I didn’t really feel like I needed anyone else, even as I mechanically searched for Mr. Right. I had more money than I knew what to do with, a beautiful house, fame, and yet . . .
    I might have stayed on Law & Order forever, but part of me was already thinking, Is there something more out there for me? I’d grown up, but in some ways I hadn’t changed at all. I was still searching for something, and I was beginning to realize that maybe it wasn’t professional success.
    I was in a relationship with Dan Abrams at the time. Our relationship was sensible. Dan and I were both born in Westchester. We both had fathers who were attorneys. We were cut from the same cloth. We were great friends and we loved each other, but my relationship with Dan was like my relationship with Law & Order. Structured, impressive, existing within boundaries we’d set for ourselves, but lacking that sense of precariousness I suddenly realized I missed. It was safe, and I was looking for danger. And I think he was, too. When we hit a rocky patch and one of his big trials had just ended, I decided to leave Law & Order, and Dan and I called it quits in the most sensible and friendly way. We were both looking for a new horizon.
    When I told Sam I was leaving after the first half of the season, he was shocked. I explained that I had a longing to express myself outside the procedural format of the show. I understood now that